Burning issue

I thank both Anna Darden and Wayne Rogers for their responses,
as members of the local wine industry, to my article regarding air
quality and the legally permitted burning of debris, both
commercial and residential. I am especially grateful for the
historical retrospective of the various restrictions put in place
over the years and their importance in regulating against air
pollution.
Mr. Rogers suggested that I may have made a target of the wine
industry due to its “perceived success.” To the contrary, I am a
big supporter of our local wine industry. My partner and I belong
to six local wine clubs and revel in the success of the industry,
hoping, as wine lovers, for its continued and ever more abundant
success. There is no necessary conflict between a flourishing wine
industry and a healthy, local environment. Clearly, wine production
can be done, and is being done by some, (perhaps even most?), in an
environmentally responsible and sustainable way. My purpose is to
encourage more of it and to discourage harmful practices which are
clearly still used by some. Most wine lovers would be willing to
pay more for their drink of choice, if it were clear that the
additional expense meant environmentally safer practices.
(Likewise, on a related score, most would be willing to pay more
per bottle to provide healthcare benefits and a living wage to more
industry employees.) In fact, local vintners who “do it right,”
deserve to brag about that fact and deserve to be richly rewarded
for it! And we all have to get used to paying the real price for
the things that we enjoy, so that we do justice by everyone
involved in the process.
In answer to Mr. Roger’s hope that I have “taken the same
initiative to reduce pollution through good personal choices of
renewable energy and transportation,” he can rest assured that our
family installed solar panels to generate electricity for our home
and that of my parents’ granny unit and that our family motor
vehicle is a Prius. As Mr. Rogers once was, I am currently my
parents’ caregiver. Like his father, my mother sometimes has great
difficulty breathing. It is as her advocate and that of all of
those like her that I continue to write.
If I was remiss in addressing my plea largely to the wine
industry in my last appeal, please allow me to turn the attention
now to those local residents who burn debris. Since the publication
of my last commentary, I have heard from the adult children of
several, longtime residents, who tell me that they are disheartened
by the fact that they cannot dissuade their folks from burning
trash and debris, despite the dangers that it poses both to the
health of everyone who breathes the smoke and the fire risks that
it poses, even under the apparently safest of conditions.
So, I keep asking: What is it going to take to stop it, if your
own health and that of your neighbors is not good enough reason? Do
we need laws to force folks to do right by their neighbors, when it
comes to burning debris? I look forward to hearing more local
wisdom regarding this very real problem, because, in the meantime,
my mother, along with many others, continues to suffer. And I
continue to be dumbfounded that, despite these obvious facts, the
practice continues.
Toni Lisoni is a Healdsburg resident.